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More than ever before, our world needs people who are alive and inspired, who have new visions, new ideas for implementing them, and new energy. However, as much as corporations, classrooms, and clinical centers say they want to support creativity, they usually end up stifling it.

For one thing, creative people are often misunderstood as undisciplined, or misdiagnosed as having a personality disorder, when in fact they are absolutely healthy within a creative norm, and capable of brilliant work when recognized, nurtured, and supported in developing their expressive capacities.

In Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, creativity scholar Mihaly Csikszentmilhalyi developed a generic description of the creative personality. It gives teachers, therapists, coaches, managers, and co-workers an expanded framework for working with people driven by internal passions, visions, and values.

Csikszentmilhalyi wrote:

“If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude. Like the color white that includes all colors, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. Creativity allows for paradox, light, shadow, inconsistency, even chaos –and creative people experience both extremes with equal intensity.”

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CREATIVE PERSONALITY

1. A great deal of physical energy alternating with a great need for quiet and rest.2. Highly sexual, yet often celibate, especially when working.3. Both extravagant and spartan.4. Smart and naïve at the same time. A mix of wisdom and childishness. Emotional immaturity along with the deepest insights.5. Convergent (rational, left brain, sound judgment) and divergent (intuitive, right brain, visionary) thinking. Divergence is the ability to generate a great quantity of ideas, to switch from one perspective to another, and to pick unusual associations of ideas. Convergence involves evaluation and choice. Creative people have the capacity to think both ways.6. Both extroverted and introverted, needing people and solitude equally.7. Humble and proud, both painfully self-doubting and wildly self-confident.8. May defy gender stereotypes, and are likely to have not only the strengths of their own gender but those of the other as well. A kind of psychic androgyny.9. Can be rebellious and independent on one hand, and traditional and conservative on the other.10. A natural openness and sensitivity that often exposes them to extreme suffering and pain, yet also to a great deal of enjoyment. Despair alternates with bliss, despair when they aren’t working, and bliss when they are.

The most important quality among creative people, says Csikszentmilhalyi, is the ability to enjoy the process of creation for its own sake.

Ask yourself how you can create classrooms, workplaces, families, and healing environments that value and support the gifts that the creative people you know have to offer.

We Need Ground Rules on How to Keep Our Brain Data Private

There’s still no technology in the world that lets you listen in on someone’s thoughts. But scientific advances are making it easier than ever to measure, interpret, and reconstruct brain activity. Add that to a growing market of wearables with mind-reading sensors, and there are more ways to map ourbrainwaves than ever before.

With more opportunities to track brain activity comes more opportunities to mine that data. That’s not necessarily a bad thing outright, but it raises some privacy concerns: who owns brain data? fMRIs are already starting to get used as lie detectors, and it’s not unreasonable to expect police and other actors to use cognitive data in the future to gauge whether someone is innocent or guilty. It’s time to talk about how much control we should have over what’s in our brains.

At the World Science Festival, neuroethicist Paul Roote Wolp stressed how important it is right now to set up ground rules to protect cognitive privacy. Wolp believes that people should have absolute control over the information in our skulls, even with warrants for the contents of our brainwaves.

“I’m for an absolute right to cognitive privacy,” he says. “What does the right to privacy mean if it doesn’t mean the absolute right to the content of my own thoughts?”

It’s the early days, but technology that uses brainwaves is well on its way to becoming mainstream. Samsung has been prepping a mind-controlled tablet interface that uses an EEG hood since 2013, and there’s already a slew of devices that use neural-monitoring technology, from Emotiv’s high-tech research EEG headsets to Necomimi Brainwave Cat Ears.

When people use these technologies, the data footprints they leave behind will contain deeply personal information. EEG can be used as a unique personal identifier, for instance. With neuro-gaming and mind-controlled devices taking off, it’s time to have a discussion about the ways companies and governments can use the brain-based data these technologies generate. Sure, cat ears you move with your mind are whimsical, but if Ncomimi sells your brainwave data, that’s not so cute.

Aside from commercial uses, Wolp and others are concerned that government agencies and law enforcement will attempt to make cases against people based on what their brainwaves reveal. Right now, fMRI lie-detection is still in sketchy legal territory, but if the technology advances, there could be scenarios like the one described in the video, where a potential terrorist is “interrogated” by reading and analysing their brain waves.

Brainwave-reading technology is enormously valuable, and can help us understand how our brains work and how diseases of the brain work. It’s inevitable that we will continue developing these technologies. But it’s important not to forget that fighting for a reasonable expectation of privacy is necessary as we develop tools that could help people data-mine minds.

(Please read the description for context of what you are getting, and what to do with it.)

The media, your pediatrician, politicians and health authorities like the CDC and FDA claim that vaccines are safe and effective. So why do hundreds of peer-reviewed studies indicate the opposite is true? Read, download, and share this document widely to provide the necessary evidence-based counterbalance to the pro-vaccination propaganda that has globally infected popular consciousness and discussion like an intractable disease.

It is abundantly clear that if the present-day vaccine climate, namely, that everyone must comply with the CDC’s one-size-fits-all vaccination schedule or be labeled a health risk to society at large, is to succumb to open and balanced discussion, it is the peer-reviewed biomedical evidence itself that is going to pave the way towards making rational debate on the subject happen.

With this aim in mind, GreenMedInfo.com has painstakingly collected over 300 pages of study abstracts culled directly from the National Library of Medicine’s pubmed.gov bibliographic database on the wide-ranging adverse health effects linked to vaccines in the today’s schedule (over 200 distinct adverse effects, including death), as well as numerous studies related to vaccine contamination, and vaccine failure in highly vaccine compliant populations.

This is the literature that the media, politicians and governmental health organizations like the CDC, pretend with abject dishonesty does not exist – as if vaccine injury did not happen, despite the over 3 billion dollars our government has paid out to vaccine injured through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund since it was inaugurated in 1986.

We have written extensively about this research previously, highlighting different studies, focusing on translating their implications to the lay persons (view our vaccine article section here), but we believe that collecting and condensing solely the primary literature itself makes a much more powerful statement.

This document is being made free to download to the world at large in order to encourage the lay public, health professionals, activists, and elected officials alike to read, acknowledge and share the voluminous literature with their family, friends, colleagues and related stakeholders. You will find this research undermines the national and global agenda to continue to expand the vaccine schedule (on behalf of a vaccine industry that is indemnified against lawsuit for defective or harmful products), with increasing legislative pressure to remove exemptions and mandate them against the evidence of harm and at best equivocal effectiveness as a preventive health measure.

If the vaccination arm of modern medicine today is to continue to promote itself as a science- and evidence-based practice, it must acknowledge and incorporate the implications of the research we are releasing here, or lose any pretense at credibility. Failing to do so will reveal that the widespread push to remove your choice in the matter is agenda and not evidence driven, and due to the fact that vaccines all carry the risk of irreversible harm and even death(any vaccine insert proves this), it clearly violates the Nuremberg code of medical ethics to promote them as a priori safe and effectiveness.

The goal of the Plan? To vastly increase the number of adults in the US who are vaccinated against diseases in accordance with the CDC schedule of vaccines.

Here are key quotes from the Plan:

“The HHS Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities includes a measure to increase the percentage of the minority population who receive the seasonal influenza vaccination.”

Translation: The government cares about minorities, and to prove it these persons will be injected with a variety of germs and toxic chemicals.

“Increase the use of electronic health records (EHRs) and immunization information systems (IIS) to collect and track adult immunization data.”

Translation: expose confidential patient medical records to many doctors and government agencies, in order to discover all adults who aren’t up to speed on their vaccinations—and therefore must get the shots. Goodbye, privacy. Goodbye, unencumbered free choice.

“Educate and encourage other groups (e.g., community-
and faith-based groups) to promote the importance of adult immunization…A variety of networks can be leveraged, including faith-based and community organizations and individual trusted leaders.”

Translation: Step up government-initiated propaganda at all levels of society, in order to convince adults to come forward and receive their injections.

Consider this: informed consent absolutely implies that the patient can refuse the medication. He has that freedom. Otherwise, “informed” means nothing and “consent” means nothing.

How can informed consent have any practical force if the patient must take the medicine?

That would be like saying, “I’m now going to tell you about the dangers of jumping out of this plane without a parachute. The law compels me to spell out the dangers. But when I’m through, you will jump out of the plane.”

This is a sword an attorney can hold and use.

Of course, the monolithic State will argue that protection of the population outweighs any consideration of individual freedom and informed consent. The State always and forever argues in that fashion, in all cases, in all matters.

That is why it is the State. It seeks, first and foremost, to expand its own power. It spreads like a fungus.

Scientists find oddly behaving ‘inner-inner core’ at Earth’s center

The newly discovered core at the center of the Earth has a different polarity than its surrounding core, represented by the purple lines. Lachina Publishing Services

Though the seismic waves from earthquakes are best known for their destructive capabilities, in the hands of geologists, they can be powerful tools of discovery. A research team at the University of Illinois has just used the rumbles from quakes to more closely examine the inner core of our planet, and what they found there was quite a surprise. It seems there’s another core inside the inner core that measures about half its diameter.

What demarcates this “inner-inner core” is that the iron crystals it contains are oriented on an east-west axis, unlike the iron crystals in the “outer-inner core” which organize along a north-south axis.

“The fact that we have two regions that are distinctly different may tell us something about how the inner core has been evolving,” Xiaodong Song, a professor of geology at UI who worked on the project with visiting postdoctoral researcher Tao Wang, said in a University of Illinois report about the findings. “For example, over the history of the Earth, the inner core might have had a very dramatic change in its deformation regime. It might hold the key to how the planet has evolved.”

While multiple components of the inner core have been suggested before, this is the first time the difference in polarity has been noted. “Indeed, the layering of the inner core has been suggested more than 10 years ago, at shallow depths of the inner core and at deeper parts of the inner core as well,” Song told Crave. “Everyone assumed before the crystal alignment was north-south. But here we found alignment in the inner-inner core to be nearly east-west.”

If all this inner and inner-inner talk sounds confusing, perhaps a quick geology refresher is in order. The Earth consists of three layers: the crust where we live; the mantle, a layer of scalding-hot liquid rock; and the core. The core consists of a liquid outer core containing mainly nickel and iron and a solid inner core made up mostly of iron. Even though the inner core is even hotter than its surroundings, the intense pressure at the Earth’s center means the inner core is unable to melt and remains solid, according to a National Geographic entry about the topic.

And now we can add another layer to our Earth’s composition: the inner-inner core, which is still mostly solid iron, but has a different polarity than the substance surrounding it.

In “unearthing” the inner-inner core, the research team relied on seismic sensors that pick up the waves that penetrate the planet after an earthquake hits, known as the quake’s coda. “The earthquake is like a hammer striking a bell; much like a listener hears the clear tone that resonates after the bell strike, seismic sensors collect a coherent signal in the earthquake’s coda,” the report says.

“It turns out the coherent signal enhanced by the technology is clearer than the ring itself,” said Song. “The basic idea of the method has been around for a while, and people have used it for other kinds of studies near the surface. But we are looking all the way through the center of the Earth.”

The researchers’ findings were published in the journal Nature on Monday.

Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs as they are commonly known, have been witnessed by millions of people all over the world and have been recorded in history books, myths, legends and traditions for thousands of years. However, many accounts that are recorded in ancient texts are dismissed as mere myths and legends, while UFO sightings that have taken place in the last few centuries have been classified as misinterpretations of natural phenomena, illusions, or conspiracy theories.

History has shown us time and again that a plethora of so-called ‘myths’ have their basis in reality. It is possible, and indeed likely, that stories and legends were a way for people to explain real—and perhaps perplexing—events using the knowledge and beliefs of their time. In support of this theory, a number of events described in mythology, which were once considered mere fairy tales, have now been proven through archaeology to have existed. A famous example is the city Troy, which is central to Homer’s ‘The Iliad’. Long considered to be a city of myth, Heinrich Schliemann’s discovery of the actual site in 1868 elevated it to a place in history. Nevertheless, the remainder of The Iliad is still viewed as a myth and fantasy without any serious attempts being made to investigate whether or not there may be more truth behind the tale. The same goes for many accounts of ‘flying machines’, which we find reference to in countless mythologies from numerous different cultures around the world.

Many cultures contain pictorial and written records of ‘flying machines’, yet these are usually dismissed as myth and legend.

It is common to see people selectively decide what is real and what is not and all of this on the unsubstantiated assumption that ancient people were primitive and had little to no knowledge compared to us today. On the contrary, many ancient civilizations, like the Sumerians, Indus Valley, and Egyptians existed with complex social structures, legal systems, art, astronomy, mathematics, and technology, some of which is still not fully understood today. The Antikythera Mechanism, for example, is a 2,200-year-old mechanical device that is still not completely understood despite decades of research by top scientists around the world.

Ancient Astronaut Theory

The topic of flying objects and supernatural beings from out of our world is one in which we find multiple references in mythologies. All of these myths and legends, along with archaeological evidence such as rock art depictions, have created a wave of theories that gave birth to the ‘Ancient Astronaut’ perspective, which links all of these ancient references and depictions to UFOs, and posits that extra-terrestrials visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistory, influencing the development of human cultures, technologies, and religions.

Unfortunately, there are numerous charlatans who have tried to ‘cash in’ on this movement for profit or publicity, or who have diminished it with caricatures of little green men, resulting in the ancient astronaut perspective being widely criticized and attacked for its lack of credibility. Consequently, what is in fact a plausible and possible explanation for what we see in ancient art and texts, is now rarely examined by scholars, who fear being ridiculed or having their professional career seriously undermined.

But let’s leave the ancient past for a while and examine just the last 80 years of human history. Millions of people all over the globe have witnessed unidentified flying objects. Many have been recorded in detailed reports witnessed by police, pilots, astronauts, government officials, pilots, military personnel and, of course, ordinary citizens. Some of the more well-known cases were witnessed by thousands of people at one time. Historical records make it evident that UFO appearances magnified during and after World War II, including the example of the famous ‘Foo Fighters’.

While most sightings can be explained either by celestial phenomena, airplanes, planets, weather phenomena, military exercises, or in some cases drug use or mental instability, there still exists a small percentage that cannot be accounted for by any of these explanations. This is what makes the phenomena important and not to be ignored, particularly considering that sightings are frequently reported around military bases and airfields and are therefore, at the very least, a matter of both national security and air safety.

It is an undeniable fact that there are cases of unidentified objects in our skies. It has been acknowledged by the major governments from all over the world simply through the very fact that official research has been conducted on the matter in the US, UK, Russia, Europe, China, South America, and many others. All of this research, in every single case, concluded that there is a percentage of phenomena that cannot be explained.

In the past decade, many countries have declassified their UFO research files, releasing thousands of documents through the Freedom of Information Act and making numerous UFO cases available in the public domain. One recently released document from the UFO files in Britain, revealed how Churchill, concerned about the UFO issue, ordered a shutdown of information for at least 50 years to prevent mass panic and the potential to undermine religious beliefs. The document in question was also published on the BBC news site in 2010.

By doing careful research on the topic, passing over obvious scam and fake stories, it is clear to see that unidentified flying objects do exist. So the question is not whether they exist or not, but rather, what are they? Are they of terrestrial or extra-terrestrial origin? And what is their purpose?

UFOs and the limits of science

Many prominent scientists have already stated that other civilizations must exist in the Universe, and that it would be statistically impossible for this not to be the case. However, with our knowledge of science and technology today, we cannot yet support the means for interstellar travel, and since we have not discovered intelligent life in our solar system, the assumption is made that there must be no way that extra-terrestrials could have travelled to Earth. However, this argument is of course flawed because it is based within the framework of our own understanding of the universe, and does not take into account the capabilities of civilizations that may be millions of years ahead of our own. It also hinges on the following assumptions:

We know everything about physics and reality and therefore there is no way that such distant travel can be achieved.
We are using our means to try to contact other civilizations (e.g. SETI’s attempts to pick up radio or communication signals) and since we don’t perceive any signals of OUR type, nothing must exist.
We are looking for organic forms of life exactly like us and for planets with the exact same conditions as ours.

It is clear that these arguments show the arrogance of mankind, a mankind that may just be an infant in the Universe. And this is not new. During the history of humanity, in every single period of time, we believed that we knew the truth, only to have it replaced later on by new ‘knowledge’.

There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement, Lord Kelvin, 1901, physicist

Quantum physics, still a relatively new and unexplored field in Science, has shown that reality could be completely different to what we believe it to be. Powerful telescopes have shown distant planets in solar systems that could possibly sustain life. Theories of wormholes and warp drives have shown that at a theoretical level we could achieve interstellar travel. Yes, we would require incredible amounts of energy to even think of trying to achieve something like this, so according to our standards today it is impossible to achieve, but in theory it can be achieved.

“It now seems quite clear that Earth is not the only inhabited planet. There is evidence that the bulk of the stars in the sky have planetary systems. Recent research concerning the origin of life on Earth suggests that the physical and chemical processes leading to the origin of life occur rapidly in the early history of the majority of planets within our Milky Way galaxy–perhaps as many as a million–are inhabited by technical civilizations in advance of our own. Interstellar space flight is far beyond our present technical capabilities, but there seems to be no fundamental physical objections to preclude, from our own vantage point, the possibility of its development by other civilizations.” Carl Sagan, Ph.D. (Late Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences, Cornell University)

Reluctance to engage with the UFO subject

The reason that the scientific community is not dealing seriously with UFOs is because the topic has been extensively ridiculed both by the media and in academic circles, with false information spread everywhere. For similar reasons, military personnel, astronauts, pilots, and other categories of professionals do not want to talk because, either they have been forced to sign confidentiality agreements, or because of fear that their careers would be destroyed. This is why we have seen many examples of ‘death bed confessions’.

One such case was with astronaut Gordon Cooper, who told the world about his experience encountering a UFO during his flight in the Mercury capsule in 1963. Before he died he stated: “for many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed on all specialists in astronautics. I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us”.

While great efforts have been made to ridicule and disparage anyone who lends support to the existence of UFOs, the fact remains that there are numerous high-profile cases that are supported by solid evidence, and which should not be dismissed.

Recorded UFO sightings with extensive witness support

Below I present a very limited list constituting strong evidence for the existence of unidentified flying objects in the last 60 years.

It all happened in the early hours of February 25 in 1942. An aircraft flew over LA County that sparked an air raid alert (it was in the midst of WWII). Searchlights and guns were locked onto the aircraft for about an hour. The picture below appeared in the LA Times in a story about the Battle of LA It clearly shows a night time defensive response to an air raid. The aircraft was not hostile and obviously was not damaged by the attack. The Government stated that the craft they were shooting at was unidentified.

It all happened in the early hours of February 25 in 1942. An aircraft flew over LA County that sparked an air raid alert (it was in the midst of WWII). Searchlights and guns were locked onto the aircraft for about an hour. The picture below appeared in the LA Times in a story about the Battle of LA It clearly shows a night time defensive response to an air raid. The aircraft was not hostile and obviously was not damaged by the attack. The Government stated that the craft they were shooting at was unidentified.

This incident involved a group of American servicemen stationed at a military base in Suffolk that contained a storage centre with nuclear weapons. There had been three consecutive night of sighting objects in the sky over the base, in some cases shining a light down upon the nuclear weapons storage. On the third night, approximately two dozen servicemen were sent into the forest to investigate one set of mysterious lights. The men reported seeing a spacecraft on the ground in close proximity to them and three extra-terrestrial beings. One serviceman claimed to have touched the craft. The whole incident was filmed and photographed by one of the servicemen, but all photos and videos were removed by the US military. When the British Government released the UFO files, the Rendlesham incident papers were missing – as reported on BBC.

In November, 1986, a Japanese crew of a jumbo freighter aircraft witnessed three enormous unidentified objects while flying over Alaska, USA. This sighting gained international attention when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it was going to officially investigate this sighting because the Air Route Traffic Control Center in Anchorage, Alaska, had reported that the UFO had been detected on radar. The UFOs in this case were tracked on both ground and airborne radar, witnessed by experienced airline pilots, and confirmed by a FAA Division Chief.

Illustration of the object, with the Boeing 747 airplane on the right. Credits: UFO Reporter

The Belgium UFO wave began in November 1989. The events of 29 November would be documented by no less than thirty different groups of witnesses, and three separate groups of police officers. All of the reports related to a large object flying at low altitude. The craft was of a flat, triangular shape, with lights underneath. This giant craft did not make a sound as it slowly moved across the landscape of Belgium. The Belgium UFO wave peaked with events on the night of 30/31 March 1990. On that night, unknown objects were tracked on radar, chased by two Belgian Air Force F16s, photographed, and were sighted by an estimated 13,500 people on the ground – 2,600 of whom filed written statements describing in detail what they had seen. Following the incident, the Belgian air force released a report detailing the events of that night.

The Phoenix Lights (also identified as “Lights over Phoenix”) was a UFO sighting which occurred in Phoenix, Arizona, and Sonora, Mexico on Thursday, March 13, 1997. Lights of varying descriptions were seen by thousands of people between 19:30 and 22:30 MST, in a space of about 300 miles (480 km), from the Nevada line, through Phoenix, to the edge of Tucson. Witnesses claim to have observed a huge square-shaped UFO, containing five spherical lights or possibly light-emitting engines. Fife Symington, the governor at the time, was one witness to this incident; he later called the object “otherworldly.”

On the night of August 30, a cluster of multi-colored lights was seen floating in the sky above Osaka. Several people reported to Twitter that they saw a group of lights forming a triangular shape and flashing green, red and white in the night sky above Izumi city in Osaka Prefecture. The sightings caused a commotion on Twitter after one user wrote: “Everyone in Osaka, go outside! There’s a UFO!” prompting others to grab their cameras and snap up photos of mysterious luminous object.

At approximately 16:15 CST on Tuesday November 7, 2006, federal authorities at Chicago O’Hare International Airport received a report that a group of twelve airport employees were witnessing a metallic, saucer-shaped craft hovering over Gate C-17.

The object was first spotted by a ramp employee who was pushing back United Airlines Flight 446, which was departing Chicago for Charlotte, North Carolina. The employee apprised Flight 446’s crew of the object above their aircraft. It is believed that both the pilot and co-pilot also witnessed the object.

Several independent witnesses outside of the airport also saw the object. According to the Chicago Tribune’s Jon Hilkevitch, “The disc was visible for approximately two minutes and was seen by close to a dozen United Airlines employees, ranging from pilots to supervisors, who heard chatter on the radio and raced out to view it.”

The incident took place on May 2007 at 14.00 local time in Lima Peru. A series of moving lights resembling an armada of flying objects appeared in the skies. The story was reported on the news and was seen by thousands of people.

An unidentified flying object that disrupted air traffic in Hangzhou for an hour on Wednesday, 10th of July 2010. A flight crew preparing for descent first detected the object around 8:40 p.m. and notified the air traffic control department. Aviation authorities responded within minutes, grounding outbound flights and diverting inbound ones to airports in Ningbo and Wuxi. Eighteen flights were affected. A spokesman from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) confirmed to ABC News that the matter is under investigation. He declined to disclose further details. A day after the sighting, however, an anonymous source told China Daily that authorities already discovered the identity of the UFO after an investigation but could not publically disclose the information because “there was a military connection.”

Xiaoshan Airport UFO Incident, China

Disclosure

Many would say that the above examples constitute irrefutable proof that extra-terrestrial UFOs exist. So why isn’t the public told about it? Imagine the implications that disclosure would have and what it would mean. Acknowledgment of extra-terrestrial civilizations having visited Earth would mean that many of the myths and legends of the past are in fact based on reality. It would suggests that humanity has been influenced for millennia by other-worldly beings, beings that in the past were considered gods. Disclosure would entirely topple the status quo and the balance of powers in society, and turn upside down what we know about the history of mankind.

The acknowledgement of the UFO phenomena is an event with the power to bring a global revolution in every sector of our lives today – technology and energy supply, communication and environmental concerns, society and religion. Is this what governments and corporations are afraid of – a shift in balance and their loss of their positions of power and control? Or is it that the powers that be are afraid of re-writing our human history?

“When the long awaited solution to the UFO problem comes, I believe that it will prove to be not merely the next small step in the march of science, but a mighty and totally unexpected quantum leap.” Dr J. Allen Hynek, Scientific Advisor to the U.S. Air Force

Update 08:42 UTC : ER calls this earthquake potentially dangerous for slight damage in the southern suburbs of Sarajevo, mainly because of the shallow depth of the hypocenter. Luckily the shaking did not lasted long.

NaturalNews) In the prescient 1984 tome, author George Orwell wrote about a supposedly “fictitious” future in which the civilized world lived in what can only be called a surveillance society, in which “the government” would be able to keep watch on the citizenry 24-7, and through a variety of technological means.

It turns out that Orwell’s premonitions were a lot more realistic than even he likely imagined.

Today, surveillance cameras are everywhere, at least in the modern world. Police have a range of listening devices and surveillance technology, some of which can see through your walls and into your home. And federal spy agencies like the NSA routinely intercept and track Internet and wireless communications.

Now, it seems, even your household goods can spy on you. As reported by Britain’s Daily Mail, you might want to keep a lid on what you say this evening when you sit down in front of your television.

Samsung has issued a warning to owners of its Internet-connected “smart TV” — anything they say while sitting in the vicinity of the device could be overheard.

As the Mail reported further:

The popular televisions are voice activated, so users can switch channels or ask for suggestions of what to watch simply by giving a verbal command.

However, the technology which allows this to happen has a worrying side effect: it records everything else that goes on near the television.

Privacy? What privacy?

According to a clause in Samsung’s privacy policy, buyers should beware:

“Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.”

For instance, that means that the TVs might be able to record a family argument that took place in the living room; executives discussing strategy in corporate boardrooms equipped with such smart TVs are at risk of sharing confidential information.

Privacy advocates are understandably upset and concerned, noting that the technology is ripe for abuse by government agencies and “Big Brother” in general (coincidentally, the name of the authoritarian state in Orwell’s novel).

“This thing is going to be in your house, listening in on you,” Renate Samson, of Big Brother Watch, a campaign group named after this very notion, said, as quoted by the Mail. “Samsung say they are providing you with a service, but really the only service you need from a television is to watch programmes.”

More than half of all smart TVs sold in Britain are made by Samsung, the Mail noted.

The problem is in the technology, which was sold as a convenience. The TVs “listen” for simple commands, such as those to switch channels or turn up the volume. But it can process more complicated commands as well, after recording users’ speech and sending it on to a third-party company called Nuance, which is located in the U.S.

Nuance then sends the voice data to a computer server, which then translates the spoken word into text and spits out a response.

As further reported by the Daily Mail:

To give these complex commands, viewers must press a button on the remote control as they speak, and during that time, anything within ‘earshot’ will be collected.

The data is encrypted, but can be listened to by authorised Nuance staff.

The technology giant remained tight-lipped about whether it then keeps users’ data, only saying that it does not sell information on, and that it operates within privacy laws, which vary by country.

Professor Peter Sommer, a digital forensics expert who has lectured at the London School of Economics, said there was ‘no reason’ Samsung would not be storing up data.

“The fear is they could be building up a pattern of your preferences, or learning your voice,” he told the Mail.

Even when interactivity is turned off, the TV can collect data

Users do have the option of stopping the recording of their conversations by Samsung; they can turn the voice recognition feature off. But even then, the South Korean-based technology giant can still collect some information.

“While Samsung will not collect your spoken word, Samsung may still collect associated texts and other usage data so that we can evaluate the performance of the feature and improve it,” says the company’s privacy statement.

The Samsung smart TVs are not the only video and television technology capable of monitoring your activity. As Natural News editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, reported last year, Amazon Fire TV (and similar services) has the capability to act as a spying device.

Gandhi condemned vaccines as a barbarous practice and a “fatal delusion”

Saturday, February 28, 2015

(NaturalNews) Yes, it’s true that Mahatma Gandhi spoke out aggressively against the “barbarous practice” of vaccines, calling them a “fatal delusion” and urging conscientious objectors to “stand alone, if need be, against the whole world” in opposition of vaccines.

This was not a casual quote; it was a bedrock principle of Gandhi’s philosophy of freedom against oppression — the very kind of oppression we are seeing in the United States today with attempts to force vaccine violations upon children at gunpoint via vaccine mandates.

ACTION: Share this story with the hashtag #vaccinationISviolation

ACTION: Alert your congressional representatives and sign the White House petition against vaccine coercion by clicking on this link.

You are living under a regime of medical extremism
What follows here is the reprinting of an important article by Sayer Ji of GreenMedInfo.com. Sayer’s courage in standing up against vaccine fanaticism and medical extremism is greatly needed in this time of media oppression and government-sponsored medical tyranny against the citizens of America.

Today, Americans suffer under a bona fide scientific dictatorship where those who reject the delusions of the cult of modern “science” are vilified, verbally assaulted and threatened with arrest and imprisonment by a fanatical class of mentally ill media operatives who claim to represent “science.” Their “science,” however, is so fragile that it cannot withstand legitimate scientific questions concerning the toxicity of vaccine ingredients, the fraud confession of the CDC whistleblower, the continued use of mercury in vaccines, and the very real disastrous phenomenon of children being damaged by vaccines.

As a result, We the People now live under a medical regime in America that in many ways mirrors the tyranny of British rule of India. All those in America today who are calling for mandatory vaccines are not merely anti-freedom, anti-choice and anti-science, they are anti-Gandhi as well. They despise the very essence of human dignity, which must be founded in the respect of medical choice and individual freedom.

Gandhi’s Anti-Vaccine Views Ring True A Century Later
by Sayer Ji, GreenMedInfo.com

Almost one century ago, Gandhi published a book where he deconstructed the dangers and lack of effectiveness of vaccines and the agendas surrounding them. His voice rings true now more than ever.

The internet meme below has been subject of a good bit of controversy. Not only is Gandhi taking what many today consider an extreme ‘anti-vaxxer’ stance, but some have questioned whether or not he ever made this statement, or statements like it.

The truth is that this quote only scratches the surface of Gandhi’s biting critique of the dangers, inefficacy, and malfeasance associated with the vaccination campaigns of his time. Gandhi, of course, is history’s most celebrated anti-imperialist, having almost single-handedly set into motion India’s independence from British colonial rule. He was extremely sensitive to Western forms of control and oppression, and was able to apply his intellect to the manner in which the Western medical establishment was coercing millions of Indians to succumb to the unhealthy practice of smallpox and plague vaccination.

Download and read Gandhi’s book on health here.

The relevant chapters from his book A Guide to Health are republished below, but we have summarized some of the key points he makes so you can get a quick sense for how remarkably relevant his views on the topic are still today, and perhaps entice you to read the entire chapter thereafter.

Key points:

* The nature of diseases like smallpox have been misconceived. While smallpox has a contagious component, vaccinated individuals can become infected, and non-vaccinated individuals remain immune, disproving Jenner’s original theory that vaccination equates to bona fide immunity.

* Vaccination is a unsanitary practice. By injecting the ‘filth’ of a diseased cow and smallpox patient into the body of a healthy individual one inevitably makes them sicker, possibly producing new infections, ultimately resulting in a greater disease burden.

* The route of administration of the vaccine — injection— harbors special dangers versus natural (oral) exposures to infection.

* Fear of disease drives people to vaccinate against commonsense and rationality.

* Vaccination is unethical and immoral because of the manner in which the vaccine is produced (through the great suffering of poisoned animals)

* The income generated through vaccination is the driving reason why the medical profession does not wish to identify aforementioned problems in safety and efficacy.

* Conscientious objectors should be willing to stand their ground with courage and face persecution and penalties.

* Those objecting for medical reasons should aspire towards mastery of the subject such that they will be able to win others towards their perspective.

* Sanitation, hygiene, fresh air, water, and clean food are essential for preventing infection and/or helping those infected to recover.
Below is the full chapter where Gandhi reveals his views on vaccination in detail.

A GUIDE TO HEALTH
by Mahatma Gandhi

Chapter VI

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES: SMALL-POX

Now we will proceed to deal with the treatment of contagious diseases. They have a common origin, but, since small-pox is by far the most important of them, we will give a separate chapter to it, dealing with the rest in another chapter. [Pg 105] We are all terribly afraid of the small-pox, and have very crude notions about it. We in India even worship it as a deity. In fact it is caused, just like other diseases, by the blood getting impure owing to some disorder of the bowels; and the poison that accumulates in the system is expelled in the form of small-pox. If this view is correct, then there is absolutely no need to be afraid of small-pox. If it were really a contagious disease, everyone should catch it by merely touching the patient; but this is not always the case. Hence there is really no harm in touching the patient, provided we take some essential precautions in doing so. We cannot, of course, assert that small-pox is never transmitted by touch, for those that are physically in a condition favourable to its transmission will catch it. This is why, in a locality where small-pox has appeared, many people are found attacked by it at the same time. This has given rise to the superstition that it is a contagious disease, and hence to the attempt to mislead the people into the belief that vaccination is an effective means of preventing it. The process of vaccination consists in injecting into the skin the liquid that is obtained by applying the discharge from the body of a small-pox patient to the udder of a cow. The original theory was that a single vaccination would suffice to keep a man [Pg 106] immune from this disease for life; but, when it was found that even vaccinated persons were attacked by the disease, a new theory came into being that the vaccination should be renewed after a certain period, and to-day it has become the rule for all persons–whether already vaccinated or not–to get themselves vaccinated whenever small-pox rages as an epidemic in any locality, so that it is no uncommon thing to come across people who have been vaccinated five or six times, or even more.

Vaccination is a barbarous practice, and it is one of the most fatal of all the delusions current in our time, not to be found even among the so-called savage races of the world. Its supporters are not content with its adoption by those who have no objection to it, but seek to impose it with the aid of penal laws and rigorous punishments on all people alike. The practice of vaccination is not very old, dating as it does only from 1798 A.D. But, during this comparatively short period that has elapsed, millions have fallen a prey to the delusion that those who get themselves vaccinated are safe from the attack of small-pox. No one can say that small-pox will necessarily attack those who have not been vaccinated; for many cases have been observed of unvaccinated people being free from its attack. From the fact that some people who are not vaccinated do get the [Pg 107] disease, we cannot, of course, conclude that they would have been immune if only they had got themselves vaccinated.

Moreover, vaccination is a very dirty process, for the serum which is introduced into the human body includes not only that of the cow, but also of the actual small-pox patient. An average man would even vomit at the mere sight of this stuff. If the hand happens to touch it, it is always washed with soap. The mere suggestion of tasting it fills us with indignation and disgust. But how few of those who get themselves vaccinated realise that they are in effect eating this filthy stuff! Most people know that, in several diseases, medicines and liquid food are injected into the blood, and that they are assimilated into the system more rapidly than if they were taken through the mouth. The only difference, in fact, between injection and the ordinary process of eating through the mouth is that the assimilation in the former case is instantaneous, while that in the latter is slow. And yet we do not shrink from getting ourselves vaccinated! As has been well said, cowards die a living death, and our craze for vaccination is solely due to the fear of death or disfigurement by small-pox.

I cannot also help feeling that vaccination is a violation of the dictates of religion and morality. [Pg 108] The drinking of the blood of even dead animals is looked upon with horror even by habitual meat-eaters. Yet, what is vaccination but the taking in of the poisoned blood of an innocent living animal? Better far were it for God-fearing men that they should a thousand times become the victims of small-pox and even die a terrible death than that they should be guilty of such an act of sacrilege.

Several of the most thoughtful men in England have laboriously investigated the manifold evils of vaccination, and an Anti-Vaccination Society has also been formed there. The members of this society have declared open war against vaccination, and many have even gone to gaol for this cause. Their objections to vaccination are briefly as follows:

(1) The preparation of the vaccine from the udder of cows or calves entails untold suffering on thousands of innocent creatures, and this cannot possibly be justified by any gains resulting from vaccination.

(2) Vaccination, instead of doing good, works considerable mischief by giving rise to many new diseases. Even its advocates cannot deny that, after its introduction, many new diseases have come into being.

(3) The vaccine that is prepared from the blood of a small-pox patient is likely to contain and [Pg 109] transmit the germs of all the several diseases that he may be suffering from.

(4) There is no guarantee that small-pox will not attack the vaccinated. Dr. Jenner, the inventor of vaccination, originally supposed that perfect immunity could be secured by a single injection on a single arm; but when it was found to fail, it was asserted that vaccination on both the arms would serve the purpose; and when even this proved ineffectual, it came to be held that both the arms should be vaccinated at more than one place, and that it should also be renewed once in seven years. Finally, the period of immunity has further been reduced to three years! All this clearly shows that doctors themselves have no definite views on the matter. The truth is, as we have already said, that there is no saying that small-pox will not attack the vaccinated, or that all cases of immunity must needs be due to vaccination.

(5) The vaccine is a filthy substance, and it is foolish to expect that one kind of filth can be removed by another.

By these and similar arguments, this society has already produced a large volume of public opinion against vaccination. In a certain town, for instance, a large proportion of the people refuse to be vaccinated, and yet statistics prove that they are singularly free from disease. The fact of the [Pg 110] matter is that it is only the self-interest of doctors that stands in the way of the abolition of this inhuman practice, for the fear of losing the large incomes that they at present derive from this source blinds them to the countless evils which it brings. There are, however, a few doctors who recognise these evils, and who are determined opponents of vaccination.

Those who are conscientious objectors to vaccination should, of course, have the courage to face all penalties or persecutions to which they may be subjected by law, and stand alone, if need be, against the whole world, in defence of their conviction. Those who object to it merely on the grounds of health should acquire a complete mastery of the subject, and should be able to convince others of the correctness of their views, and convert them into adopting those views in practice. But those who have neither definite views on the subject nor courage enough to stand up for their convictions should no doubt obey the laws of the state, and shape their conduct in deference to the opinions and practices of the world around them.

Those who object to vaccination should observe all the more strictly the laws of health already explained; for the strict observance of these laws ensures in the system those vital forces which counteract all disease germs, and is, therefore, the [Pg 111] best protection against small-pox as well as other diseases. If, while objecting to the introduction of the poisonous vaccine into the system, they surrendered themselves to the still more fatal poison of sensuality, they would undoubtedly forfeit their right to ask the world to accept their views on the matter.

When small-pox has actually appeared, the best treatment is the “Wet-Sheet-Pack”, which should be applied three times a day. It relieves the fever, and the sores heal rapidly. There is no need at all to apply oils or ointments on the sores. If possible, a mud-poultice should be applied in one or two places. The diet should consist of rice, and light fresh fruits, all rich fruits like date and almond being avoided. Normally the sores should begin to heal under the “Wet-Sheet-Pack” in less than a week; if they do not, it means that the poison in the system has not been completely expelled. Instead of looking upon small-pox as a terrible disease, we should regard it as one of Nature’s best expedients for getting rid of the accumulated poison in the body, and the restoration of normal health.

After an attack of small-pox, the patient remains weak for some time, and in some cases even suffers from other ailments. But this is due not to the small-pox itself; but to the wrong remedies employed [Pg 112] to cure it. Thus, the use of quinine in fever often results in deafness, and even leads to the extreme form of it known as “quininism”. So too, the employment of mercury in venereal diseases leads to many new forms of disease. Then again, too frequent use of purgatives in constipation brings on ailments like the piles. The only sound system of treatment is that which attempts to remove the root-causes of disease by a strict observance of the fundamental laws of health. Even the costly Bhasmas which are supposed to be unfailing remedies for such diseases are in effect highly injurious; for, although they may seem to do some good, they excite the evil passions, and ultimately ruin the health.

After the vesicles on the body have given place to scabs, olive oil should be constantly applied, and the patient bathed every day. Then the scabs rapidly fall off, and even the pocks soon disappear, the skin recovering its normal colour and freshness.

Chapter VII

OTHER CONTAGIOUS DISEASES

We do not dread chicken-pox so much as its elder sister, since it is not so fatal, and does not cause disfigurement and the like. It is, however, exactly [Pg 113] the same as small-pox in other respects, and should therefore be dealt with in the same way.

Bubonic Plague is a terrible disease, and has accounted for the death of millions of our people since the year 1896, when it first made its real entry into our land. The doctors, in spite of all their investigations, have not yet been able to invent a sure remedy for it. Now-a-days the practice of inoculation has come into vogue, and the belief has gained ground that an attack of plague may be obviated by it. But inoculation for plague is as bad and as sinful as vaccination for small-pox. Although no sure remedy has been devised for this disease, we will venture to suggest the following treatment to those who have full faith in Providence, and who are not afraid of death.

(1) The “Wet-Sheet-Pack” should be applied as soon as the first symptoms of fever appear.

(2) A thick mud-poultice should be applied to the bubo.

(3) The patient should be completely starved.

(4) If he feels thirsty, he should be given lime-juice in cold water.

(5) He should be made to lie in the open air.

(6) There should not be more than one attendant by the side of the patient.

We can confidently assert that, if plague can be [Pg 114] cured by any treatment at all, it can be cured by this.

Though the exact origin and causes of plague are yet unknown, it is undoubted that rats have something to do with its communication. We should, therefore, take all precautions, in a plague-infected area, to prevent the approach of rats in our dwellings; if we cannot get rid of them, we should vacate the house.

The best remedy to prevent an attack of plague is, of course, to follow strictly the laws of health,–to live in the open air, to eat plain wholesome food and in moderation, to take good exercise, to keep the house neat and clean, to avoid all evil habits, and, in short, lead a life of utter simplicity and purity. Even in normal times our lives should be such, but, in times of plague and other epidemics, we should be doubly careful.

Pneumonic Plague is an even more dangerous form of this disease. Its attack is sudden and almost invariably fatal. The patient has very high fever, feels extreme difficulty in breathing, and in most cases, is rendered unconscious. This form of plague broke out in Johannesburg in 1904, and as has been already said, 2 only one man escaped alive out of the 23 who were attacked. The treatment for this disease is just the same as that for [Pg 115] Bubonic Plague, with this difference that the poultice should be applied in this case to both sides of the chest. If there be no time to try the “Wet-Sheet-Pack”, a thin poultice of mud should be applied to the head. Needless to say, here as in other cases, prevention is better than cure.

2 Part II, chap. IV

We are terribly afraid of cholera, as of plague, but in fact, it is much less fatal. Here the “Wet-Sheet-Pack”, however, is of no effect, but the mud-poultice should be applied to the stomach, and where there is a tingling sensation, the affected part should be warmed with a bottle filled with warm water. The feet should be rubbed with mustard-oil, and the patient should be starved. Care should be taken to see that he does not get alarmed. If the motions are too frequent, the patient should not be repeatedly taken out of bed, but a flat shallow vessel should be placed underneath to receive the stools. If these precautions are taken in due time, there is little fear of danger. This disease generally breaks out in the hot season, when we generally eat all sorts of unripe and over-ripe fruits in immoderate quantities and in addition to our ordinary food. The water also that we drink during this season is often dirty, as the quantity of it in wells and tanks is small, and we take no trouble to boil or filter it. Then again, the stools of the patients being allowed [Pg 116] to lie exposed, the germs of the disease are communicated through the air. Indeed, when we consider how little heed we pay to these most elementary facts and principles, we can only wonder that we are not more often attacked by these terrible diseases.

During the prevalence of cholera, we should eat light food in moderation. We should breathe plenty of fresh air; and the water that we drink should always be thoroughly boiled, and filtered with a thick clean piece of cloth. The stools of the patient should be covered up with a thick layer of earth. Indeed, even in normal times, we should invariably cover up the stools with ashes or loose earth. If we do so, there would be much less danger of the spread of disease. Even the lower animals like the cat take this precaution, but we are worse than they in this respect.

It should also be thoroughly impressed on the minds of persons suffering from contagious diseases, as well as those around them, that they should, under no circumstances, give way to panic, for fear always paralyses the nerves and increases the danger of fatality.

Scan Reveals Mummy Hidden Inside Buddha Statue

Researchers examining a nearly 1,000-year-old statue of Buddha on display in Holland discovered something very unusual hidden inside: the mummy of a meditating monk.

Calling the mummy its “oldest patient ever,” the Meander Medical Center in the Dutch city of Amersfoort used a CT scanner to take images of the body inside the statue and an endoscope to examine the thoracic and abdominal cavities.

The mummy is believed to be that of Liuquan, a Buddhist monk who died in China around 1,100 A.D. During their examination, the researchers found that the mummy’s internal organs had apparently been removed and the space filled with “paper scraps that were printed with ancient Chinese characters,” the hospital said in a news release.

The statue was on display as part of the “Mummies: Life Beyond Death” exhibition at the Drents Museum in the Netherlands last year, and this was the first time it had been let out of China.